I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog! -Emily Dickinson

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

LEFT

10:41 a.m. Tuesday

Left eye – double vision constantly now. Heather is going to
find me an eye patch. Black, piratey- might as well have some fun! Steroids are
at 8 mg a day now – not that I notice much different. About a week and a half a
go my speech started to slur. Now I have paralysis on the left of my face. The
Dave speculates (on the phone) that the cancer is moving into the nerves in my
jaw. So. It’s getting quicker and Dave thinks I should see him (Friday) and have
a visit from a couple people from the palliative unit . Tick tock.

You found a way to get here to see me – found the money,
raised it, made time to get away and truly you want to see me. I know.

I will likely not resemble your memory of me and I spend
hours a day living in the place (as Robbie Robertson wrote) where a radio is
tuned to static. I watch from a distance as the Carnival parade passes by –
with absolutely no desire to take part. It’s peaceful here. All that I used to
build the character in my life movie – looks, skills, abilities, flaws,
personality traits – all of those have turned out not to be me. All so much
flickering light and shadow, all illusion.

Sending you love and light. I took care of my mom for 10 months and watched her slowly leave me on her journey to a better place. I made her promise me when she came back to pick a better life she thought I was crazy but she promised me, so I hold comfort in that. You are a loving beautiful woman and when you come back please promise me you will pick a really good life full of love and happiness, you deserve this Lina!